KYOTO, Japan -- Now it's up to Australia and the United States to try to fix figure skating.

International Skating Union president Ottavio Cinquanta has had his say, with the congress giving the go-ahead for more testing and research into his radical reform proposal. But it's going to take many months before it can be used.

So unless skating wants to keep the same judging system that sparked the scandal that rocked the Salt Lake City Olympics, it needs a new plan.

"It's very important that we come away with some changes,'' said Sally Stapleford, chair of the ISU's technical committee. "Something has to be done immediately.''

The U.S. Figure Skating Association and Ice Skating Australia will make presentations Wednesday (Tuesday night ET) to spell out their proposals that would modify the current scoring system. Unlike the ISU proposal, which was considered by the entire congress, only the figure skating delegates will consider the U.S. and Australian plans.

The U.S. proposal would use the median mark to determine the score. The Australian plan would throw out the two highest and two lowest marks, then add the technical and presentation scores together to get a point total.

No vote is likely before Thursday. There's no clear consensus which proposal is the favorite, and a compromise is possible, with elements of both being used.

"I don't think that nothing will happen,'' Cinquanta said. "The next season rules will be different than the ones we have today in the book.''

The sport doesn't have much choice. While skating generates millions of dollars for both the ISU and International Olympic Committee, the IOC doesn't like anything overshadowing its show -- the Olympics.

And that's exactly what the pairs scandal did in Salt Lake City. Events that would have been defining moments at any other games were all but ignored after French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne admitted she had been pressured to "vote a certain way'' when she put Russia's Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze first.

The IOC even took the unprecedented move of awarding duplicate gold medals to Canada's Jamie Sale and David Pelletier.

"The pairs event in Salt Lake City has destroyed and canceled in one minute all the efforts in the world during the last 40 years,'' said Katsuichiro Hisanaga, the ISU's figure skating vice president.

"The only way the ISU can regain its credibility is to show the entire world its firm will to clean house and establish a clear new judging system.''

While the vote on the ISU plan wasn't close -- 81 countries voted to go ahead with further study, 16 were against and seven abstained -- not everyone is sold on it. It's an overhaul of the current system, replacing the current 6.0 scale with a points system.

But not everyone is convinced such a drastic measure is needed. The problem is bloc judging and back-room deals, not the marking system, said Donald McKnight, president of Ice Skating Australia.

"What we have to do is remove or eliminate, as far as possible, the opportunity for that dealmaking to take place,'' McKnight said.

Both the USFSA and Ice Skating Australia say their proposals would do that. Both would involve some random selection of marks, with the judges not knowing whose scores were used.

It's hard to make a deal when a judge can't even guarantee his or her marks will be used, McKnight said.

But fans won't know, either, spoiling the fun of being able to see which judges are voting for which skaters.

"That seems to be the price we have to pay for something better in another direction,'' McKnight said.

The Australian and U.S. delegates have been fielding questions about their proposals since they arrived. The Americans are even handing out small, laminated squares with highlights of their plan -- complete with smiley faces instead of bullet points.

But while the United States is the ISU's largest federation, that doesn't necessarily give its proposal an advantage.

"We don't want to run everything,'' said Phyllis Howard, the USFSA president. "I really think it's more important that whatever system goes through is a valid system that works.''